Bring out the GIMP: Adobe Photoshop and Creative Suite to become subscription-only

Share This article

Adobe has announced that Creative Suite 6 will be the end of the line for its boxed, standalone versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Affect Effects, and their fellow digital editing brethren. In the place of Creative Suite 7, Adobe will instead release Creative Cloud (CC), which is exactly what it sounds like: To use Photoshop CC, or indeed any of the new Creative Cloud tools, you must sign up for a monthly subscription.

Adobe will continue to sell standalone versions of the Creative Suite 6 apps, but they won’t be updated with new features, and there’s the implication that Adobe will eventually cease selling non-subscription products. To get your hands on Adobe’s incredibly sexy de-blur technology, or a new sharpening tool that only sharpens the foreground, you’ll have to sign up for a monthly or annual subscription. For the complete Creative Cloud suite, which is equivalent to the CS6 Master Collection, you’ll have to commit to 12 months at $50 per month ($600/year). If you want access to just a single app, such as Photoshop, it’s $20 per month with no annual commitment. If you’re upgrading from CS3 or later, the first year is half price — after that, you’ll probably end up paying the higher rate.

To put this into perspective, the Creative Suite 6 Master Collection will set you back ~$2,500, while a single Photoshop CS6 license is ~$700. At $600/year for the complete Creative Cloud suite, it would be more than four years until you surpassed the hefty CS6 Master Collection standalone price. At $240/year for Photoshop CC (or another Creative Cloud app), you’re still looking at 2-3 years before you “overpay.” Let’s not forget that you should get a new major release of Creative Cloud apps every 12 months as part of the subscription price, too. For your monthly fee, you also get 20GB of cloud storage, and access to services such as Behance. From a convenience standpoint, Creative Cloud does sound rather appealing — and to be honest, the pricing is really quite generous.

The problem with subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models, though, is that they reduce the number of options available to the consumer. Let’s not be naive, either: As with almost every major business decision, Adobe only switched to SaaS because it hopes to make more money — especially from pirates, who might be squeezed out by improved DRM (or maybe the lower cost will encourage them to go legal?) While Creative Cloud sounds like a good deal, what about the people who don’t want to be tied to a subscription? There are plenty of people who use Photoshop 7 because they have an old computer, or simply because they’re happy with its feature set. Old, boxed versions of Photoshop can be picked up very cheaply, too.

What about people who live in countries not supported by Adobe’s subscription service? At the moment, Adobe lists 29 supported currencies — whereas, with boxed versions, you can install Photoshop in any of the world’s 249 territories without issue. For now, you only have to connect your PC to the internet every 30 days so that Adobe can check your subscription — but what if Adobe changes its terms of service in the future? What if, like SimCity, Adobe implements always-0nline DRM? What if Adobe decides to bump the price up next year? What recourse do consumers have, if Creative Cloud is the only option?

Well, fortunately there are alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and the Creative Cloud suite. There’s the GIMP, of course (Windows/Mac/Linux), though we’d be lying if we said that it was comparable to Photoshop in terms of usability or features. For Mac, Acorn ($30) is probably the best of the rest. For Windows, Paint.Net (free) is probably your best bet. For your illustration and video editing needs, viable alternatives are harder to come by. Corel Draw is good — and Corel has committed to releasing standalone, perpetual licenses for the foreseeable future — but expensive. There’s Final Cut Pro for Mac, of course; Sony Vegas for Windows is OK, but again quite expensive.

Post a Comment

There is no real difference between this and the ElectronicArts SimCity DRM fraud.

These managers should just be put in jail but they are clearly untouchables like bankers. A bunch of legalized thieves that the law doesn’t dare to touch no matter how much money they steal from people.
What EA did with SimCity it’s just insane, they got $$millions and they even released a 2.0 patch that added more bugs to a clearly defective product. And they can’t be touched.
No customers organization in the world dares touching them either.
They didn’t issue any refund to their customers too.
A small software house couldn’t have got away with it for sure, it would have gone bankrupt easily after a single customer sued them.
These CEOs and managers of large software houses, multinational Companies/Corporations instead can commit whatever kind of fraud they want.
Not even car manufacturers that are way big multinationals can just keep selling defective products, scams and frauds.. they rarely try to get away with it, only very minor defects could get no fix for customers.

NSDAP

It’ll be 4 times cheaper for the master collection. You are NOT a legit user, you, like me, are a pirate. Ergo, you ought to shut your mouth and stop complaining. Stick with CS6 or pay up

VWineirle

$12076&nbspjust working on the internet for a few hours. Read more on

chojin999

You don’t know me. You don’t know anyone else writing here anything.

So you are a pirate then? Enjoy it. There are people that either buy their own copies or are employees of businesses that paid the original legit copies.

Do you get that or it’s too hard for you to understand ?

NSDAP

How are people being ripped off when the price is actually going down?

And no, none of what you say is too hard for me to understand. I understand that you are definitely a pirate (stop pretending your not) and are thus butthurt you’ll actually have to pay for the software you use. Further more, don’t be so sure I don’t know anything about you. You posted on the internet without a VPN, it isn’t very hard to pinpoint your location and credentials.

KID HTML

PREACH!

Pvblivs

But the price ISN’T really going down. Adobe came to the conclusion that most of the “features” they were bloating their products with were useless and that people were skipping upgrades. For the sort of person that skips upgrades until (and unless) a feature he WANTS comes along, this will be much more expensive — as well as less convenient as the program must “phone home.”

For a major corporate publishing house. For an amateur who otherwise upgrades infrequently, this is a raw deal.

Dan Larson

If you have anything to do with print, then I agree GIMP is not up to the task, but as a web developer who has been using GIMP professionally for 8 years, I don’t think it’s fair to discount it entirely.

Naipier

There are a number of very good alternatives to Adobe products. One has but to look.

thesunnyk

Can I ask why? I’ve done some print industry stuff and I know what’s under the covers. For modern Gimp (2.8) I no longer understand why it’s unsuitable for print.

Dan Larson

Is there a way to use GIMP to design in the CMYK color space? As implied, the bulk of my work is digital graphics, so I haven’t really bothered looking. The few times I have designed print products, I have not found a way to do so – there is a CMYK color panel, but the file itself is still using an RGB profile – and I have been continually disappointed by the consistency of the color reproduction.

Obviously this is going to depend on the printer as well, but the goal of the designer should be a consistently accurate final product in any medium, and in my experience, giving an RGB file to a printer leaves a lot of room for error in per-device interpretation.

thesunnyk

The way Gimp deals with it is to have ICC profiles to flip colour spaces (using the separate+ plugin to split out CMYK). This can be a problem if you have stuff coming in that’s CMYK space, but for outgoing stuff it shouldn’t be too bad. However, the problem here is actually the bit depth in RGB space (8 bits) is not too good once it’s converted. Gimp 2.10 should support 16 bits per channel, which should be out near the July/August timeframe.

IMHO your source file (.xcf in gimp, .psd in photoshop) should always be in RGB. There’s no capture medium that doesn’t use the RGB colourspace and CMYK is only really good for a particular printer with their particular profile, and you’re going to output that as a CMYK TIFF (via Separate+) anyway. The big problem is getting the right colour profile, not having the right colourspace. Colourspace conversion is near perfect (better than seeing CMYK on your monitor).

I suspect it’ll be a minor pain to set up the separate+ plugin in the gimp, but then it shouldn’t be too bad. I’m unsure about spot colours, but if you’re using that then I’m hoping you’re using a different tool like Scribus or Inkscape.

3DGuy

I think you all are missing the point. Yeah it may be cheaper but you will never own a copy. You all be a sheep to the wolves, I will stick with my CS6 master collection and get 5 to 6 years out of it. When I go to upgrade hopefully adobe has changed their mind or there will be other companies creating better software. I refuse to pay money for a product or software that I do not own. With that being said pull your head out of your butts, stop being a closed minded fan, and open your eyes and see that you truly are being ripped off. When ever some sells you something and you have nothing to show for it or call it your own it’s called a scam. Let me tell you all are being scammed heck Adobe has been ripping us off on prices for years and yet you all keep running to them saying give it to me more bent over with a big cheesy grin. I’m sure I will get replies saying I am stupid I don’t make sense well let me tell you I own my copy and when Adobe shit gets hacked again or if they screw something up at least I will be able to use my software while the rest of you blind followers are sitting on your thumbs complaining that Adobe get their crap together. Any reply defending Adobe will go on deaf ears and blind eyes, I will not listen to your crap. For those of you that side with me we need to stand strong and stop buying into the bullcrap. There are plenty of alternatives out there and if there aren’t then here is a challenge to you that are good at coding software. Spend the time and create something that is close to what Adobe offers, give us our own install disks or hard drives or thumbdrives, and you get will get people willing to buy you software. On a finishing note, People stop being led by the hand in life, instead grab life, embrace it, and never let anyone tell you this is the way it is.

Naipier

This is a leash around the neck of creativity. Its BS. I want to be able to buy my software and not have to worry about future price hikes. I want to be able to create without having to worry if Adobe is going to change the services provided… or if they’re going to nickle and dime me for every single filter, or new tool. This is just more micro-transaction business BS.

Michael Clapp

Then keep your old versions. I’m not thrilled with it either but I’m one the legitimate users they want to target. I only upgrade every 5 years or so because honestly I don’t often need the latest gee-whiz features they offer. Keep up with camera raw and I’m pretty happy. It’s not all good for Adobe either because there’s almost no reason for me to buy their suite like I did before. If I’ve used InDesign twice in the last two years I’d be surprised.

Maventwo

Even if some say that GIMP is no option to Adobe Photoshop.
This change from selling Photoshop to Photoshop in the cloud can also make GIMP to develop to more easy handle.
Just think now with Intel ideas with large touch displays in their concept for All-in-one PC with up to 27″ displays.

With this Intel vision about very large touch displays for thin All-in-one PC with up to 27″
displays will make it easier to develop programs like GIMP which is using this multi-touch
interface.
Especially now when Adobe make this change to Photoshop in the cloud
it will make GIMP-developers more interested to make GIMP even better
than it is today.

http://www.facebook.com/ian.skinner.9 Ian Skinner

I can see the day when there are pirated clouds that have this and other ‘cloud only’ products on them.

thesunnyk

I can understand Gimp being unfavourably compared to photoshop, but I don’t understand why the Gimp is compared unfavourably to Paint.net. Gimp is clearly superior to PdN, which isn’t even aiming for the same level as the Gimp.

As for the Gimp, I will make two notes: Firstly, it appears that many people used Gimp long ago and are using it to talk about the Gimp today. It has changed dramatically, and it’s definitely worth another look.

Secondly, it appears Photoshop is the go-to tool for designers, whether it should be or not. That is, designers will use photoshop to design websites, UIs, page layout, etc. Photoshop isn’t the right tool for any of these things, but it’s the go-to tool for designers, so it has features to that end. Designers need to learn how to use other pieces of software on their PCs. When they use photoshop to do a website, they create work for both themselves and the people around them. The Gimp might not have the features to do a website mockup, but as a developer I see that as a positive so that the designers will stop handing me a .psd file and thinking their work is done.

Basil Nolan

I know is like allowing to have Adobe’s belt on your neck to enter their CC subscription program, but as an amateur graphic designer I am, I can’t wait to use that deblur technology.

jhambi

I can’t believe the ammount of bitching and moaning there is over having to pay $20 per month for photoshop. Your computer syncs once per month. That is it. You can get hypothetical all you want as to if they would make it like sim city DRM or something, but there is no indication of that for the immediate future.

dinoSnake

1) The $20/month plan is the least expensive, for a single Adobe application. The other plans are up to $50/month, for the full suite.

2) You have NO idea when the software asks for that sync.

3) If you terminate your subscription you lose ALL functionality to the programs, your programs are now DOA

4) If you terminate your subscription you have NO access to your Adobe proprietary-formatted files; you lose all access to PDF, INDD, etc.

So, after 3 years, you’ve paid in $1800 for access to the full suite. You can buy, right now, the CS6 Design Standard suite for $900; you can buy the Master Collection right now for $1600-$1900.

You terminate your subscription after 3 years. Not ONLY do you have NOTHING – no working program to show for your $1800 pay-in – you can’t even open the saved projects you created during the past 3 years!

And this is SMART? Any wise business, after investing in the cost of the manhours to create a project, being told that you will lose ALL access to said project unless you pay someone else in perpetuity…would say “No!”

THAT’S what were are bitching about. Wake up and see the light of exactly how this fully affects you.

http://orismology.me/ Dominic Mulligan

See, that’s the huge problem I have with Creative Cloud. I’ve got nothing after 3 years. I’d at least like to be able to keep the latest version I’ve paid for. Let me keep forever the most recent major version after I’ve been subscribed for a few years. It’d be like rent-to-own, and I’d feel much better about CC.

jhambi

If you work in the industry, you would be upgrading more frequently than every 3 years. Most places stay up to date with the current version or -1, so you are looking at a cash expenditure that is on par with (or more than) the CreativeCloud. With CC you are getting upgrades at no cost.
I see it as a similar argument to a buy versus lease/rent type debate. In this case it would be a lease with a new car every year vs buy and then 5 years later, buy again, with both cases resulting in a similar expense. For a business, not having to deal with maintenance and always having something that is up to date/reliable is often worth the premium over having to deal with things on your own and sticking with something old for years past expiration. Additionally, you could invest the money you save by not buying the full creative suite up front, and pay for the CC off the interest you make. Put it in a stock that pays a dividend or something, and when you decide you need to be able to open files forever after the internet crushing robot apocalypse, buy an old boxed version of PS with the principal you still have. Finally, this puts the barrier of entry (legally anyway) into the professional design/art realm within reach of WAY more people. Even kids can spend $20 a month if they want to try out photoshop, where as an initial outlay of more cash than a PS3 and 360 put together is much harder to stomach.

Jeff Jones

Think of it more like this. What if Adobe disabled your copy of CS5 if you didn’t upgrade to CS6 upon it’s release? The creative cloud is essentially doing the same thing. Especially for those who don’t care about the actual cloud features.

3DGuy

See that is where you are wrong there are plenty of business owners and professionals that would disagree with you statement about staying up to date that often. There are plenty of us that use the software for many years and only decide to upgrade because there are features that will increase our production time. In all reality I could still be using CS4 and still do everything everyone else is doing. I had the opportunity to get CS6 so I got it. If I didn’t I would still be using CS4 and enjoying it. You my friend are buying into their lies and BS.

3DGuy

You said this well my friend. Keep preaching this statement and maybe just maybe if we can get Adobe to realize they are making a mistake then maybe they will eventually change their minds.

m0r1arty

GIMP covers most people’s ability levels and I don’t think the fee is anywhere near bad for professional users.

I say it’s a win-win for everyone involved and pirates will, of course, find a way around it anyway but for legit users I think this is a good model.

WoW’s been getting away with it for years, why shouldn’t profit making programs?

Robert Foy

I can’t believe you just compared WoW to this new Adobe scheme….your comparing apples to oranges.

B_Lebowski

WoW just lost 1 million subscribers last quarter and Activision warned investors to expect more losses. That attrition rate is largely due to competitor’s so called ‘free to play’ games which is the big trend in entertainment software right now. Adobe is hardly moving in the right direction, I think they’re making a huge mistake. How soon before users of the boxed versions — CS 5 or 6 — are forced to pay monthly fees by Adobe?

ronch

I’m not a professional graphics guy but I use GIMP to touch up photos and do minor graphics work. Thing is, as much as I like it because it’s free and is an admirable effort, I’d be lying if I told you that it’s a polished product, never mind being as full-featured as Adobe CS. Heck, something as simple as positioning an image on a piece of paper for printing doesn’t even work properly. And yes, I’m using the latest version. If the GIMP developers can really polish GIMP and make it as functional as Adobe CS I’m sure Adobe would think twice about making its software SaaS. Then again, GIMP’s free. Take it or leave it.

Sipho Mfungi

Won’t this be as easy to beat as windows activation? the software and all the files are on your machine after all.

jhambi

I would think so. Then again, most people pirate photoshop already, so I think they are hoping that by saying you could have it for just $20 (monthly) it would entice more people to go legit and pay for it.

Made me a feel a little better about the ridiculousness of the situation :)

Xellion

Adobe is shooting themselves in the foot.

having photoshop be the quintessential photosoftware synonymous with any kind of photo editing is HUGE, they’re going to cut that short and it will become niche again, professional use only.

jhambi

Those are the people who currently actually pay for the software anyway, so even if it do go that way, I can’t imagine they would be too hurt.

James Tolson

its not hard to get hold of older versions of software like photoshop, infact the version i use is from the late 90’s i think, but it has all the tools and plug ins i will ever need. and it is really fast on modern machines… most software like this are just full of bloat these days.. another example is corel draw.. i tried X5 and it seems to have less features than corel draw 9 from like 14 years prior x5 dnt even have the 3d program with it? and is just full of DRM? modern software SUCKS imho

http://www.facebook.com/chris.sjoblom Chris Sjoblom

University Computing Labs are already running into great difficulty trying to figure out this new subscription model and adobe currently has no response. Will there be a large shift if students/instructors cannot get easy access to the software?

Jeff Jones

Considering that I only paid $1200 to upgrade from CS5 to CS6, and those kind of upgrades are usually 18-24 months apart, your $2,500 price tag is off for the majority of users.

What Adobe is really doing is implementing a future method where they can essentially disable your copy of CS5 if you don’t upgrade to CS6. They won’t be giving it hard version numbers anymore, but it is essentially the same effect. If you refuse to pay the $600 fee every year you loose access to the previous software.

And by the way, it also means that Adobe doesn’t have to create new features to make people want to pay for the yearly upgrade price.

Rhys

I think the author has missed one vital point.
This year photoshop is $19.99. It’s an introductory price to stop people kicking off (hasn’t worked). What if it’s $29.99 in year 2, and $39.99 in year 3? Suddenly you are paying WAY WAY over the odds.
Lastly what incentive is their to release new features when adobe no longer have to ‘convince’ customers to give them money, when now they will be holding them ransom.

Jim

I suppose internet connections are so ubiquitous that this problem isn’t considered anymore, but what if you want or need to access the program when an internet connection isn’t available? What about increased costs if you have bandwidth limitations? Or, when Adobe’s servers have a problem? How then do you work on a project? See this thread for an example of how users are already suffering this problem:

A “technical glitch” necessitated the shutdown of the activation server. Adobe’s solution is to offer the products with bulk licenses that don’t require activation. This is a lousy solution for the consumer! Not only is the user forced to waste time and bandwidth downloading and reconfiguring the software, but in my case and others, the bulk download installs improperly and requires more time to tweak to be able to use it.

There’s a concern about piracy; I understand. However, I have not pirated Adobe products. I’m in the market for video editing software. Guess who won’t be getting my money for my next purchase? Adobe is out.

I feel for those who must use Adobe products because of the tool set. Adobe products have become de facto for many applications. Sadly, corporations will not do the right thing for consumers. As legislation doesn’t seem able to control these anti-consumer practices, our only recourse is to reduce the company’s market share. If enough users find alternatives and other products are developed to fill our needs, Adobe will understand the mistake it has made.

3DGuy

Well said

andythebouncer

You know… it’s not like the old boxed version, or old computers are going to stop working. If you’re happy not getting upgrades, stick with the old stuff. You can buy old hardware for like, nothing. If you want the new shit, you have to pay for it. I’m really glad that I’m not going to have to shell out for what it costs to buy a used car, periodically, for an updated set of adobe products, and instead, pay a smaller monthly fee.

Jfante1452

At $240/year for Photoshop CC (or another Creative Cloud app), you’re still looking at 2-3 years before you “overpay.”

Bull puckie. Who feeds this stuff to tech writers? Could it be Adobe? I purchased a full version once 15 years ago and have upgraded every other version since for a grand total of $1200 out of pocket. I would pay three to four times more over the same time period with Creative Cloud. Not a good deal. One that I say no to a thousand times.

victorv

I am still using CS3 and am getting ready to pass to CS6. I save up to buy a hard copy that I own. I prefer it like that and fill I am the owner of what I paid for. Also, sometimes $20 can be a lot, if you add all the bills, and Adobe is hardly a necessity. Anyhow, after CS6 I will never buy into the cloud. Possibly Adobe will protect itself from pirating, but will lose a whole lot of amateurs and semi-pros in the process. Adobe will also lose its dominion as the market standard, as most non professionals will resort to other options, and….others options will therefore thrive and aggrandize.

Justin White

You never own propriety software. You are still just leasing their intellectual property. You guys need to stop sucking on Adobes teat and join the GLP community. GIMP may be worse at this stage but you have the full ability to contribute to make it better. Remember what Michael Jackson said “They (Adobe) don’t really care about us”

Ian Dee

This is outrageous! I’ve been getting pirated copies of Photoshop for free since 2004. I can’t believe I will have to pay for it in the future.

Shame on you Adobe!!

Al

This is simple – unhappy customers are unhappy customers even it the product is free. Unhappy customers generally settle for less to get a divorce from the company that makes them unhappy. The infusion of revenue in the competition aids its development. The loss of revenue no matter how minor reduces R&D and in a bloated company like Adobe that spells less product for more cost to keep the shareholders happy. It ends up in a degenerative spiral – Ashton-Tate, Lotus, etc. I’ll keep using Adobe stuff but I wasn’t looking for a replacement last year – now I am. My bet is that I will find one. In my medium (Video) there are alternatives. Pictures aren’t that important when you only see them for a few seconds.

Larry Smith

Walkouts are a good way to to negotiate and with subscription business models. its time to create consumer unions.

large
corporations are using the “tragedy of the commons” game theory against
consumers more and more. The creative cloud will do just that. As
individuals, consumers will be powerless to price changes if all your
work is held hostage in files that are rendered useless if you decide
not to pay future rent.

Labor unions started for this very reason. Its time for consumer unions to be formed.

The last 2 months ive been on a quest. To find if there are viable alternatives for professional software.

I only interested in providers that have multiple alternatives to adobe not just 1 product. That narrows the list. I have found 3 alternatives to adobe. No im not insane. Yes cs 6 still exists but who are we kidding that its 1.5 into its 2 year upgrade cycle. Also adobe is not giving discounts for it not being shinny new as they gave discounts before when products were getting dated by new items. Also cs 6 has no future because no upgrades/updates for it improvement just switch to cc.

Many alternatives including all these 3 are running many sales off and on.

Serif, prosumer quality,100$ a program but you will probably need a few. Very al a cart. Great for hobbyist/students. They are equivalent to cs 3 ish. Free permanent starter edition downloads equal to cs 2ish.

Xara, professional, 300$ designer x9 suite, good and much cheaper than adobe. They are equivalent to cs 4+. Please look into them. They worked with corel for a few years on CorelXara a drawing program that became Xara photo & designer. So both companies benefited from that. They know what they are doing.

Corel, professional, 500$ CorelDraw x6 suite, some what spendy but not compared to adobe, some of their products are unarguably better than adobe but those come down to preference. They are equivalent depending on the product to cs 4-6.

I own no software as a student but unless xaras trial blows me away my money is with corel. They appear to be the most likely alternative to bite at adobes heels and force them to relinquish the rim of the hill adobe is king of. Corel just gets you more bang for your buck. Such as xara will include 250 font, which is a good amount but corel includes 1,000 which is a very competitive amount to what adobe includes.

Can we switch? Yes we can mr obama!

http://digitally-free.blogspot.com/ d.free

The problem here is that not all professionals need the LATEST version of PS. For example, I’ve heard of photographers that still use CS2 simply because they don’t need all the new features that are coming out. If you update a lot, CC is a deal. If you’re planning to keep it for a while before upgrading, it’s not worth the monthly deal. Honestly, cloud software just means more money for them and less choices for you.

Manny Guy

This subscriptions thing SUCKS! You actually pay more money than the original boxed version. Think about. Your better of paying for cs4 than this ultra rubbish. So ANNOYED!

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2015 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.